Mothers and Sons
by Mystic25
Summary: Before receiving her quest from her mom, Annabeth went to visit Sally Jackson, as she often did now that Percy was gone. This is that story.


"Mothers and Sons."

Mystic25

Rating: T for language.

Before receiving her quest from her mom, Annabeth went to visit Sally Jackson, as she often did now that Percy was gone. This is that story.

A/N: This has some Percabeth moments, but will mainly focus on Sally and Percy's relationship. Also any mistakes about events in the Son of Neptune or the Mark of Athena were purely accidental, so if you find any, please just let me know.

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**xxxxXxxxx**

"_Her name is Sally Jackson & she's the best person in the world…." _

Percy Jackson & The Olympians - The Lightning Thief 

"_Love__ is blind, your mother started loving you before she ever saw your face.__"_

-Unknown.

**xxxxXxxx**

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It was never quiet in New York City. There was always something honking, or ringing, or the sounds of people talking, getting out of cabs, hailing _other_ cabs. It was a place of noise and bustle that Sally Blofis had grown accustom to ever since she had moved here at age 20.

This morning, the noise was the first thing that greeted her, a noisy clatter of cab doors that opened and closed and a few choice swear words as the people on the street argued over who was getting inside the opened ones first.

She laid there in bed for a minute and listened to the noise like it was a the ring of her alarm clock that she was too tired to shut off. The thick down comforter billowed over her like a cloud. It was all shoved on her side of the bed since her husband Paul had already left for work. It was Winter Break, but the teachers had a workshop in preperation for one of those mandated standardized tests named by an anagram comprised of half the alphabet.

She turned and stared at the display on the alarm clock on her nightstand. It was almost 11 in the morning. Sally was surprised that she had slept so late. She was such an early bird normally, being the mother of a son with ADHD didn't leave her much time to sleep in since Percy was no doubt into something, or breaking something and she had to make sure he hadn't maimed himself in the process. Given the fact that her son had recently added celestial bronze weapons to his collection of possessions had crept up that worry by several degrees.

But in the last few months even the noise and clatter of a city with a population of over 8 million hadn't drown out the sound of just how quiet it had become in her apartment.

Percy spent most of his summers at Camp, but during the Winter Break her house was _never_ silent. Her son may have been the greatest demigod warrior since Achilles, but when he wasn't trying, he was as quiet as a heard of stamping elephants.

It drove Sally crazy.

But now it was what she missed the most.

She barely got out of bed some mornings because the quiet was so absolute it was almost suffocating. Sometimes in the middle of the night she heard a noise in the hallway and rushed out of bed, without bothering to throw on a robe only to find that it was an umbrella that had fallen over or the neighbors cat had crawled through her open window by the fire escape and had knocked it over.

She always stood there and wanted to blame either the cat or the umbrella for the heavy feeling that clamped itself over her heart, but she never wound up blaming either.

This morning was the worst kind of morning though, no cat, no knocked over umbrella, no wishing it was the sound of something else. Just silence.

It was just very, very quiet.

She laid there, her arm dangled in the open air, and felt a phantom tug of Percy's hand on her fingers when he was little and she had slept too late.

"_Mommy I'm hungry!" her 5-year-old shook her arm like it was a jump rope._

_Sally blinked sleep out of her eyes, and saw Percy who stood there in Superman pajamas, his black hair stuck up from sleep. "Gabe didn't make you any breakfast?" the words came out garbled because she was still half asleep, face buried in the pillow._

_But Percy could still understand her. "He said its woman's work."_

_Sally rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and sat up. "He didn't give you _anything?"_ It was almost noon. She had been sick the night before and had fallen asleep past 2 am. She hadn't exactly married her husband for his stunning personality, but she thought he'd have some bits of common decency to take care of his own stepson._

_In answer, Percy held out a piece of paper for her._

_Confused, Sally took it, and unfolded a note that basically told her to get her lazy butt out of bed and feed the boy. There were a few choice words intermingled between the request. Sally bit back a few choice words of her own at Gabe for being so, so – stupid._

_Instead she turned her attention back to her son who looked at her with huge green eyes the color of the sea. "You want some pancakes Percy? Blue ones?"_

_Percy's stomach growled loudly at the mention of pancakes, and a huge smile crossed his face. "Yeah! can I have blue syrup too mommy? Gabe says there's no such thing, but I don't believe him-"_

"_How about blueberry syrup baby? Would that work?" Sally said, and did not hide her smile at her son's enthusiasm. His ADHD was in full swing, but she didn't care because he was so excited._

"_Yeah, yeah, that'd be so cool mommy!" Percy shouted and tore out of the bedroom screaming "PANCAKES!"_

Sally closed her fingers, and there was nothing but air. She sat up with a sigh that she kept from becoming something more painful by force. She climbed out of bed and got dressed and made the bed quickly so she wouldn't be tempted to crawl back in it and stay there with the memory of Percy and blue pancakes.

She walked into the bathroom, combed her thick curly black hair and tied it up in an elastic band. There were bags under her eyes that hadn't been there 8 months ago. A bottle of concealer sat on the counter beside her hairbrush. She recently started using it when she was going to work, or out shopping so people wouldn't be inclined to ask her if she was alright. They meant well, but she couldn't take sympathetic looks from her friends, and the strangers on the buses and subways. She started to hate all the '_I understand's_ and '_It will be okay's_ because it was just something people said like a reflex, it was never real.

"_Why are you using so much of that stuff?" Percy watched her lift the tube of coral lipstick to her lips._

_Sally smiled at the reflection of Percy standing there in his new suit. The one her Aunt Mavis had bought him for funerals had long since been outgrown and had always smelled like mothballs and three different breeds of wet cat. This one was charcoal gray with a cornflower blue tie. His hair was almost tamed with gel that Paul had lent him earlier, his green eyes bright against the dark backdrop of fabric._

_She thought he looked very handsome. Though if she told him she knew he'd just be embarrassed, and give her a 'mooom!' "It's my wedding day Percy," she said, closing the tube, and wiping a smudge of lipstick off the corner of her mouth. "I want to look pretty."_

"_You already look pretty mom," Percy said._

_Sally had to blink back a few tears to keep her mascara from running. She smoothed down the skirt of her blue and white stripped dress and turned around. Her son was only 15, but he was already an inch taller than her. She smoothed out the lapels of his suit jacket for something to do. _

"_You're nervous!" Percy said almost like it was a shock to him too._

"_No I'm not," Sally returned, tightening the knot on his tie more, more meaning she almost choked Percy with it and had to redo it when he almost gagged._

"_Mom, I fight monsters all summer," Percy said," I know when someone's nervous."_

"_And I'm your mother-" Sally completed a Windsor tie knot while she scolded her son; but then Percy's eyes twinkled in that mischievous way they did before he pulled some sort of prank or joke._

_Sally sighed, but a moment later it dissolved into a smile and she pulled Percy into a hug, smelling the ocean and the beach on him._

"_You'll be awesome mom," Percy said._

Sally turned off the bathroom light and walked in her socks to the kitchen with its cream colored walls. The mahogany clock mounted on the wall ticked away on its second hand. That had been a gift from Aunt Mavis as well, the day Percy was born. She had always been a rigid doweress of a woman, and when she came to visit Sally after she brought Percy home, she had given her the clock wrapped in newspaper, no card - a _Congratulations to you and your bastard_ _child _present. Sally had kept it all this time, because she had found out it had originally belonged to Lord something or other back in the 1600's in London. She looked it up on an online auction appraisal site, and its asking price only superseded an original Monet – that thing was Percy's college scholarship. Gabe never found out about it though. She always told him she got it for 5 dollars at a swap meat, and thank gods the idiot believed her.

Paul made coffee already, it sat warming in the red coffee maker. A Post It note was stuck on the side of the pot, written in Paul's handwriting.

_Back around five._

_Try and have fun._

_Love you._

Sally stuck the note on the fridge and poured herself a cup of coffee in her favorite mug. It was blue with the logo of _Sweets on America_ printed on it – the Candy store where she used to work. She would bring home leftover candy for them to eat every day, all of it blue –blue lollypops, jellybeans, gummy worms, jawbreakers. Percy looked cyanotic afterwards, blue tongue and teeth, they'd have "stupid faces" contests with their stained mouths, until Gabe chased them out of the kitchen with the ranks smell of onion dip and cheap cigars muttering about how dumb they were.

Sally went by there yesterday and picked up pound of candy, jellybeans, suckers, gummy bears –all of it blue. She put it all in a large glass bowl and sat in the middle of the kitchen table. She sipped from her coffee cup and stared out the window at the Manhattan skyline. Their apartment was in the ritzy part of Manhattan, but it did have a good view of a lot of the city, including the Empire State Building.

As well as being a famous architectural landmark, it was also the secret entrance to Mount Olympus in America. As a mortal, Sally had never been allowed up there herself, but Percy had told her all about what it looked like, the buildings, the fountains . Last Summer the entire top floor had even been lit up in blue – Percy's way of letting her know that he was safe.

She didn't sit and look out this window that much anymore, most of the time the curtain was closed. She couldn't avoid it out on the street if she were in that part of downtown, but at home – it was too painful, especially when it was quiet like this.

"_Did you like the Empire State Building?" Sally pushed a plate of chocolate chip (blue chocolate chip) cookies to her 7-year-old. Percy had just come home from a field trip to the top of the Empire State Building. She thought he would be more excited, there were so many things to see, and to look at._

"_It was big," Percy was sitting in the kitchen chair next to her, his backpack on the floor by his feet when here had let it slide off his body. He mumbled these words into the plate of cookies._

_Sally offered him a smile "Yeah it is, it's 102 stories, it's one of the tallest buildings in the city. I'll bet it was fun riding the elevator all the way to the very top of it."_

_Percy had a cookie on the table top, but he had yet to eat it, he just kept breaking pieces of it up in his fingers._

_Sally's brows knit in concern, when a 7-year-old didn't dive into a homemade plate of hot cookies, something was wrong. "Honey, do you feel okay?" She started to reach for his forehead._

_His head raised up. "Mommy, what's a freak?"_

_Her hand fell. She looked to the living room where Gabe was happily watching a Jets game with the volume all the way up and inhaling tortilla chips and seven layer bean dip, oblivious to their conversation. She knew her husband's pension for making lewd jokes at Percy's expense, and didn't want him to chime in. "Where did you hear-"_

"_We were riding in the elevator- " Percy pronounced it 'elya-vator.' "and when we got off Ms. Simmons told me to look for the sign for the 'servatory-"_

"_The observatory?" Sally questioned._

_Percy shook his head, like he was embarrassed about where the story would lead. "I couldn't find it. I tried mommy! But I didn't see any signs that said 'servatory. They all just said funny stuff-Ms. Simmons had to find it for me, and Tommy Lester called me a freak cause I'm almost 8 and can't read. Then the whole class laughed at me-" Percy finally picked up his cookie and shoved it all in his mouth so he wouldn't have to keep talking. His head dropped low as he continued chewing._

_Sally raised her son's head, his green eyes were glistening with tears. But what broke her heart more was when he wiped them off messily with his arm, not even trying to pretend that he wasn't crying. _

_She wiped the excess crumbs off Percy's mouth. "You're not a freak Percy. Remember what we talked about? You just read differently from everybody else, okay?"_

"_But I want to read like the other kids!" Percy said._

_She brushed a few more tear tracks from the tears that had fallen into the pieces of his cookie still left on the table. "If you read like the other kids, how would I know who you were?"_

_Percy stopped crying for a minute and thought about it. "Guess you wouldn't be able too." He reached for another cookie, this time taking a regular bite into it instead of breaking it or swallowing it whole._

_Sally nodded. "And then I'd be sad, cause I'd miss you," she leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, and he managed a smile._

The doorbell rang. Sally sipped some more of her coffee, but left it on the table and went to answer it. She glanced through the peephole briefly, opening the door a moment later to the girl with a mass of blonde hair and storm gray eyes tucked under a blue ski cap.

"Hi Mrs. Blofis, " Annabeth gave Sally a smile, but it didn't last longer than a few moments. "I brought some bagels." She held up a white paper bag with '_Murray's Bagels'_ printed on it.

The girl seemed at a loss as to what to do. She had been coming here every week for the last month, but each time she looked like she was intruding, or like it took everything she had just to stand there.

Sally knew the feeling. She reached for Annabeth's white scarf and started to unwind it from her neck, but eventually she fumbled the teen into a hug.

Percy's best friend, Her Percy's girlfriend. She absorbed this each time she touched Annabeth. Their hug ended, and Sally saw the tears in Annabeth's eyes and felt the ones in her own. She put her arm around the girl and took the bagel bag from her. "Come in. I've got the candy."

Annabeth sat herself at the table while Sally poured them some coffee and placed the bagels (blueberry) on a plate. Giving a teenager coffee was frowned on by every parental magazine Sally had read. But Annabeth had been fighting evil things since she was a little girl, one cup of coffee wasn't going to ruin her.

They sat there in silence for the first five minutes, sipped coffee, and took bites of blueberry bagels and the assortment of blue candy on the table. Sally had no idea if either one of them were even hungry, but the blue food had become a tradition on their visits, a way to be close to Percy.

"Any news?"

Sally and Annabeth had long since given up attempted normal small talk. In the beginning they had tried talking about her job, or her latest book, or Annabeth's classes. But it would never last before Percy came to the forefront of their minds.

"He's at the Roman Camp," Annabeth played with the outside of the coffee mug with her fingers.

Sally's eyes widened, she listened to Annabeth recount all the things she learned on her solo scouting missions, and what this Roman Demigod Jason had told her. Her eyes went wide enough to fly jumbo jets in when Annabeth explained how they were almost complete with building a huge Greek Warship and would be ready to travel in a week and a half to California.

Annabeth finished talking and seemed to deflate like a balloon, like she had been saving all her energy for just those words and now had none left. She was playing with her camp necklace. There was a pink coral shell in the center of the leather cord, a gift from Percy. Sally had taken him to a local jewelry proprietor to have a hole punched in it so he could give it to Annabeth on their two week anniversary.

Percy had been so nervous the day he was supposed to give it to her. He was taking Annabeth out to a movie that night, and kept staring at the shell like he was appraising the value of a piece of gold while he waited for Annabeth to come. He almost broke the shell a few times, but thankfully Annabeth had arrived before all Percy had to give her was a pile of coral dust.

"_I never knew you were so sentimental Seaweed Brain," Annabeth fingered the coral shell as they stood outside Percy's apartment after their date. _

"_We made it to two weeks Wise Girl," Percy said. "That's like –_ forever-_ in Percy Jackson time."_

"_You have your own time now?" Annabeth said, her voice amused._

"_I also have an Achilles Curse and a sword that's also a pen," Percy returned. His smile was a bit timid, like he was afraid he had said something wrong. But it also still had that mischievous look that she had seen since he was an inch shorter than her._

_Annabeth rolled her eyes, but she was also fighting off a laugh. "Guess I picked a good boyfriend then." she smiled and leaned over and kissed him._

_Through the peep hole on the other side of the door, Sally was smiling too._

"Does – does your dad know about you leaving?" Sally's question wasn't a real one. It involved heavily clearing her throat after the first word. She had just been told that a 16-year-old girl was going to pilot an Trimerine warship to rescue her son who had vanished almost a year ago. It was something to say when Sally didn't know what else to say, but didn't want to lapse back into silence.

"I called him from my dorm room yesterday," Annabeth said this as casually as she would've if she were talking about an upcoming Midterm. "He didn't sound really happy-but he understands because it's about Percy."

"And your mother?" As soon as she had said the words Sally had no idea why she had asked them. Annabeth's mother, her _real_ mother – she wasn't a cookie baking, soccer mom who expected her daughter to call her the minute she came home from school. She was an Olympic Goddess, and if she were anything like Poseidon, Annabeth had probably seen her maybe five times in her life.

"Athena hasn't spoken to me since last summer," Annabeth sounded about five when she said this. Like the kid she was underneath all the years of Half Blood Warrior training – who had wanted a mom who wasn't a goddess but a _mom._ "A week after Percy disappeared, she came to me at Camp. I told her what had happened. But she just acted like she didn't care," Annabeth laughed dryly. "She's _ never_ understood about Percy."

Sally leaned forward. Annabeth had her arms resting on the wooden table top, and she was leaning over them, tracing a hand over the wood. At least Sally thought – until she rested a hand on the girl's shoulder and Annabeth pulled back. And Sally saw the golden knife in her hand, which had carved a pattern in the wood of her kitchen table.

"Oh Gods, I'm so sorry-," Annabeth's chair squeaked as she jumped up from it, her knife clattered to the table top. Annabeth wiped at the knife carving like it could be cleaned away like a magic marker drawing.

Sally placed a hand on her arm, lower, on the elbow, looking at the carving – which a series of scratched letters, _P-E-R_.

A bit of color drained away from Sally's face. She released Annabeth's arm and touched the letters with her thumb.

"_I can't do it!" Percy flung his pencil to the ground, and it rolled under the table, and Sally felt it bump her foot._

_She picked it up and set it back on the piece of notebook paper that he had in front of him. There were already a series of handwritten lines on the paper- Percy's full name over and over again – written sloppily like he had done it with his non dominant left hand. One of the lines had Percy spelt with two 'e's at the end Jackson spelt with a 'U' instead of an 'O' That line also had a huge X across it and a hole in the paper Percy made with the pencil before he had thrown it on the ground._

"_You're teacher says your doing much better Percy," She held up the pencil waiting for him to take it, hoping that he wouldn't throw it and give up before he tried again._

_Her 11-year-old son looked at her, his black hair hanging in a tangle in front of his face. "That's only because she'd get in trouble for calling a kid 'stupid' in class."_

"_You're _not_ stupid Percy," Sally said, her voice raising. "Remember how we talked about your dyslexia? It just means you learn differently from other kids, and you just need more time to do things-"_

"_I'll be in sixth grade next year mom and I can't even write my own name!" Percy didn't even try to lower his voice, because Gabe was out playing poker at his friends house and getting loaded on cigars and cheap beers. He crumpled up the paper into a ball and threw it at the wall, it bounced once and landed in the kitchen sink._

_Sally took a deep breath, and felt the tears sting her eyes on her exhale. Because Percy sounded so frustrated. He'd been going to regular teachers since he started school, with only a few ESE classes to help with his dyslexia, which had helped him out for a while But because the school was a private one they charged for those extra classes. And after Sally's hours got cut back at work, he had to give them up. _

_He had come home today and told her his teacher – who wasn't trying to be mean she had said – had sent home a note that said, maybe Percy needed 'help' with his spelling. Sally had told her that Percy was dyslexic, and could spell fine, but the woman was one of those overly 'helpful' types and said she knew of their 'financial troubles' and offered a few take home lessons for them to try and 'improve his disability'_

_Sally was furious, but Percy had been expelled from his last school for 'being disruptive in class' (something about an exploding water fountain) and she wanted him to have some sort of continuity in his life. So she was trying the lessons out. _

_But now she had had enough._

"_So?" she said._

_Percy looked at her like she had two heads, two baffled to respond back._

"_Who said that not being able to spell your name at 11 makes you stupid Percy?"_

"_My guidance councilor, and Ms. Estes," Percy mumbled, pushing his pencil around on the table, scribbling a P-E-R into the wood._

"_Two people?" Sally said, sounding unimpressed. "Sweetheart, there are _6 billion_ people in this world. Did you know that? Two people saying that doesn't make it true-"_

"_But they're teachers mom!" Percy said like that explained it. "What if they hold me back? Or put me in one of those special classes next year where kids still play with finger puppets even though they're 14 and have beards?"_

_Sally took another deep breath, and when she exhaled this time she gripped Percy's wrist. "Percy, being able to write your name is _great._ But knowing who you are is more important that trying to spell it correctly._

_Percy looked at his writing on the table top and smudged the lead away with his fingers. He sighed a long suffering sigh, and leaned back in the chair, eyes downcast. But then he raised his head and there was a ghost of a grin on his face. "Can who I be, be a kid who has homemade blue chocolate chip cookies?"_

_Sally pretended to look affronted, but she ruffed up her son's hair affectionately. "I think I can do that."_

"I'm sorry Mrs. Blofis," Annabeth looked truly scared, like Sally would kick her out, and she had no other place to go except to a generic dorm that didn't care about her.

"Annabeth-" Sally raised her hands, tentatively touching Annabeth's thick curly hair, gauging her reaction to her touch. When Annabeth didn't jump, Sally started weaving her fingers through it like she would do to Percy. "Sweetheart calm down, it's alright. I'm not mad." Sally found herself wiping away the tear tracks on Annabeth's face as they fell silently.

She looked so young and sad then, that she gave up wiping after a minute and drew her into a hug, holding Annabeth tightly.

"I miss Percy," Annabeth's words were a hiccup around her crying. "I miss him so much."

Sally felt the tears as they fell down her face and dripped into Annabeth's hair, and her heart constricted painfully tight. "Me too honey."

When they finally released each other, they were both a mess of blotchy red faces and drying tear tracks. Sally handed Annabeth a pile of brown napkins to blot her face off which she did and blew her nose messily into them.

Annabeth said she had to go because her school was very strict about breaking curfew. Sally didn't know whether this was true or Annabeth needed a moment to collect herself privately, to live up to the leader status she had taken on since Percy had vanished. But she had grown to love Annabeth like she loved her son. So she picked up the knife from the table top, and handed it to the girl hilt first, like it was the most natural thing in the world, not saying anything so Annabeth wouldn't loose face.

Annabeth sheathed the knife in a scabbard hidden under her sweater. She walked to the door and collected her coat and scarf.

Sally watched her wind the white thing around her neck two times then hide the top of her blonde hair away under her ski cap.

"Let me know when you guys come home okay?" she said. "I don't care how long that is-" She squeezed Annabeth's hand. "Just come home."

Annabeth met her gaze with those amazingly gray eyes that Percy could never stop talking about. "I will."

They hugged one more time, and Sally kissed the side of the girl's head, and then she was gone.

Paul came home at 5:30 with Mushu pork from the Chinese Takeout place down the block. They ate on the sofa with the TV turned on to some old movie that neither one of them really watched, just had on for noise. He asked how the visit went with Annabeth, and Sally told him briefly, only because it was something that she couldn't find herself being able to repeat. Paul didn't press her, he was a good man, and they watched the movie ending curled on the sofa together.

Hours later when they were in bed, Sally was pulled out of her sleep by the phone ringing. She rolled over and stared blearily at the clock which showed it was 1:30 in the morning. She groaned and rolled her face into the pillow to let the machine pick up what was no doubt some late calling ink and toner telemarketer.

The machine beeped, and Sally groaned again, because now she couldn't fall back asleep until the damn call ended. So she got up to get a glass of water, and halfway to the kitchen, she heard it.

Percy's voice.

On the answering machine.

_"__Mom. Hey, I'm alive. Hera put me to sleep for a while, and then she took my memory, and..." _

Sally ran to the machine but she tripped over an end table, because she was in too much of a hurry to turn on the light. She hobbled over to the machine, swearing and rubbing at the sore area on her bare leg.

_"Anyway," _Percy's message went on_, "I'm okay. I'm sorry. I'm on a quest –__"_ his voice sounded shaky. _"I'll make it home. I promise.__"_

She stopped in front of the phone, that sat on a buffet table behind the sofa.

"_I love you."_ the message played on.

She grabbed at the receiver. "Percy?!"

Nothing.

"Percy?"

The call had ended.

Sally dialed *69, and it told her the call originated from a payphone in some remote town near Anchorage, Alaska. It asked her if she wanted to call the number back. She hung up slowly, and raised a hand to her mouth.

She pressed the button to replay his message. His voice sounded tinny like all answering machines did, even on her fancy new one, but he was _there_, talking to her.

She had held it together for so long. Even those moments when she was weak, she didn't break down fully, she didn't allow herself that, she had to be strong, For Percy.

But hearing him talking to her on the machine, it made every. single. memory of Percy crawl out of hiding and slam into her.

Her son,

Her boy.

She heard his voice, after eight _months_ she heard it again.

She sunk to the floor in her nightgown and bare feet, and held the answering machine in her lap, and heard Percy's voice repeat the: _"I love you,"_ at the end of the message.

She pressed her back into the sofa and cried, the answering machine still rested on her knees.

"I love you too baby."

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**xxxxXxxxx**

**End.**

R/R Please.

Mystic


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